Stir frying is a pair of Chinese cooking techniques for preparing food in a wok: chǎo (炒) and bào (爆). The term stir-fry was introduced into the English language by Buwei Yang Chao, in her book How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, to describe the chǎo technique. The two techniques differ in their speed of execution, the amount of heat used, and the amount of tossing done to cook the food in the wok. Cantonese restaurant patrons judge a chef's ability to perform stir frying by the "wok hei" produced in the food. This in turn is believed to display their ability to bring out the qi of the wok and essence of the food cooking.
Read more about Stir Frying: Chao Technique, Bao Technique
Famous quotes containing the words stir and/or frying:
“The hand and foot that stir not, they shall find
Sooner than all the rightful place to go;”
—Jones Very (1831–1880)
“unless I can shake myself free of my dog, my flag,
of my desk, my mind, I find life a bit of a drag.
Not always, mind you. Usually I’m like my frying pan
useful, graceful, sturdy and with no caper, no plan.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)